Barnaby Joyce: Pork-barrelling hoarder or mad doomsday prepper?

IT REALLY IS TIME for an article that asks the question: Is Barnaby Joyce's pork-barrel hoarding and half baked rants a sign of the end times?

Only a doomsday prepper would load up an entire government agency and “bugout” to Armidale. Particularly, since the long awaited cost-benefit analysis showed no economic reason for the move. It could be blatant pork-barrelling but a conspiratorial mind might think Barnaby is preparing for a zombie carp pandemic or its equivalent — Barnaby Joyce, the doomsday prepper.

The shit has hit the fan (SHTF) for 175 public servants forced into survival bugout vehicles and running the gauntlet to Armidale. For them, it's not so much mayhem in the streets but upheaval in the house — forced to pack up their families and head into Barnaby's carp wasteland.

And it's not just the public service. On Australia Day, he implored thousands of questioning Aussies to find a rock and crawl under it — just being rude, or code for "get out of Dodge, I have an underground bunker in Tamworth".

The deputy prime minister is particularly focused on Sydney for his recruitment drive. His brand of rugged individualism means folk should stop looking for a safe haven in Sydney, because they're never going to find an affordable dream in the NSW capital. For many, it's a real estate dust bowl — a negatively geared wasteland. Nothing Barnaby or his government can do about that, right ? So, he's telling Sydneysiders to forgo any hope of a harbourside view (or any view for that matter) and head to the flatlands of Tamworth or Charleville; to leave their families behind and abandon hope entirely in outback cow country.

Days after stories of Barnaby Joyce's expense rorting
HIS answer to housing affordability
"Move to Charleville"#FFShttps://t.co/uYN3ZybTv9

So, Barnaby's pandemic of alien carp is going to make things crowded in the bush. It's not clear what the member for New England expects people to do out there. Jobs are pretty hard to find. But that's a minor concern for the deputy PM. He's obsessed with total self-reliance and wants Australia to match his own hardcore fanaticism — wealthy, pampered and privileged can stay in Sydney. The rest should "bug out" to the western plains.

Barnaby has assured us that shelter won't be a problem out in the boondocks. After all, if one doomsday prepper can build a medieval castle with his bare hands, can't we all? Charleville could be turrets and battlements as far as the eye can see. Some preppers might be concerned that infrastructure and services won't be up to scratch in the wild but, apparently, Barnaby doesn't see this as an issue. If mobile phone black spots make internet unreliable, how hard can it be for a true survivalist to bounce sound waves off the moon, using a transistor radio?

More evidence that the deputy PM's doomsday is nigh: he seems to be stockpiling supplies in the badlands of New England. That's the only way to explain the$670,897 he spent on office renovations in Tamworth and Armidale. State of the art survival equipment – land-mines, flame-throwers, electrically charged fencing – doesn't come cheaply. And the controversial Adler semi automatic shotgun he wanted imported into Australia ? Could be racks of them in Barnaby's bunker.

If, as some people suspect, the deputy PM has been binge watching National Geographic’s Doomsday Preppers, he'll know that, in the wilderness, survivors are on their own. Who needs a living wage when you have macho individualism? There's nothing Barnaby likes better than his tribe "Bear Grylling" on kangaroo testicles, emu eyeballs and crunchy crickets. He does admire self-reliance in others but, given his expenses history, just don't ask him to display any.

Barnaby Joyce is certainly preparing for the end times. Pumping all those resources into the heart of his electorate to avoid "his own" political Armageddon. The deputy PM unashamedly stockpiling votes with public money while at the same time berating everyone else for not being self reliant — classic prepper motto, "defend what's mine".

But is the deputy prime minister a paranoid loon who never grew up? And is he prepping for a calamity of his own making? Barnaby should try to answer that in his own words.